great pyramids which we still see rising amidst the sands of the desert, she gives us the conception of material force; that is, the one thing which mastered the Egyptian mind more than anything else. Now, material force is an important element in every stage of the world's history and civilization. But to the Egyptians was given the power of realizing, of elaborating, and of being thrilled by this vast conception. To this day we wonder at the masses of masonry erected by them, and speculate upon the sort of mechanicial agencies which they must have had at their disposal. If I glance at India, I find something quite different. India is the seat of intellectual speculation, the source of thought; and let me remind you that intellectual speculation has given many of the greatest and best things to the world. There is no important invention or discovery which does not owe much to the imagination and more to patient and deep thought. In China I find the source of regulating action, and you all know the benefit of practical application. You know what a flimsy and hollow thing a sermon is, for instance, unless there is something to lay hold of, something practical, which helps us in the regulation of our lives. The Justinian code of Roman Law lies at the root of half the European legislation of to-day. What a nation once does thoroughly she does for all time. Then there is a mysterious nation which I have not mentioned yet; I allude to that Semitic nation, that missionary race, that race to whom was given the power of keeping alive a consciousness of the spiritual in the midst of crushing material forces. The gift of the moral law and the grace of the spiritual life comes from the Jews. This nation, as I pointed out elsewhere, seems to have been brought in contact with all the great nations of the world, at the time when those nations had reached their highest degree of civilization; and this strange and wonderful Semitic people, as we know, gave to those nations a moral law and a spiritual life, taking from them at the same time a good deal, but never losing their own individuality. And I cannot be unmoved when I remember that from this people came Jesus Christ, the Author of our religion-came Christianity, which was, as it were, the concentrated essence of all that was most highly spiritual in the world at that time,-came Christianity, which has watched over the development of the modern nations of Europe and AmericaChristianity, which has been most mighty, and planted itself with the tread of onward civilization, and which is at this moment developing, and only kept back by the unwillingness of man To Persia belongs the perception of those mighty influences of good and evil, which in one form or another have fascinated and bewildered the world. To Chaldea we must attribute the birth of to accept the new aspects of divine truth, and astrology and astronomy. the determination of religious people not to allow the free spirit of religion to incarnate itself in all the more modern forms of thought. When I come to Phoenicia I see that spirit of commerce and enterprise-a thing the value of which we appreciate in England above all places in the world; and we should look back with awe and reverence to those who first taught men to feel at home on what we call our native element, the sea, and made commerce the great work of a great national life. Later on in the history of the world, we find in Greece the source of mind governing matter; Greece, the father and the mother of the arts; Greece, to whom was given that intense perception of the loveliness of the human form, and of all the artistic capacities in man. To Greece belongs that, and from Greece comes that gift of seeing beauty to the whole world. In Rome, we discover the world's legislator. Rome gave law to all the nations of the earth. Brethren, standing thus between the Past and the Future, can I look back without a certain awe and conviction of Divine superintendence and purpose upon the development of the world? May I not say there has been one and the same mighty spirit at work here, a spirit not only of intelligence, but a spirit of beneficence? We are the heirs of all the ages. We, in our complex civilization, in our superior skill of maintaining the health of the body and regulating man's social happiness and stamping out disease, in discovering the laws of the mind, in using the forces of nature, in lightening the burdens of life, in legislating for the welfare of society-we are living witnesses that the Law of Progress has been going on, creating many de velopments out of the most simple things, until all things tend to grow into a more grand and complex unity; and we are not at the end even now. As I look forward into the future, I can see a time when men will point back to this age, and call it the infancy of the world. The arcana of nature have still to be revealed, the supremacy of justice and love has still to be vindicated, the palm-branch of universal peace has still to blossom and to bear fruit, and give its leaves for the healing of the nations. I will ask you to rest your minds by a short pause, before I proceed rapidly to survey the history of the Christian Church. The Apostles knew that and taught that, and the Church of the Fathers entered into their labours. From A.D. 400 to A.D. 1208, the Christian Church was almost an unmixed blessing to humanity. It was not widely at variance with the intellectual state of the times; it was, perhaps, a little in advance of it. It was the conservator of literature, the patron of the arts, the friend of science, and the censor of morals. About 1208 the Church made up its mind that it was a great deal of trouble to go on with the age, and stood still. About 1208 the Inquisition was established at Rome, and fixed dog When Jesus Christ came, He founded an out-matic truth, thus erecting an immovable standward and visible kingdom resting upon two great laws; one law was the universal brotherhood of man, not as a theory, for as a theory that universal brotherhood had been long known; but as an active principle, making every one acknowledge that there was something common between man and his fellow-man, upon which a commonwealth of love might be founded. Another law was the communion between God and man, that dream which all religions have shadowed forth, and which Jesus Christ proclaimed with a voice of thunder, which has resounded through the ages and still rings in our ears. Jesus made men feel that it was possible to pray to God, that it was possible for God to pour Himself into the soul of man, that it was possible for the development of every individual to be carried on under the superintendence of a Divine love. Upon these two great principles the Christian Church was founded, and as long as the Christian Church adhered to them it went on conquering and to conquer. As long as it accepted this law of love, moulding it about new social and political modes of life, as long as it could shape the future, by adopting and consecrating the Law of Progress, it continued to rule, and by ruling, to bless the world. The interest of man in men, and of God in all men, shown by deeds of love, and the irresistible power of a holy life; that, I make bold to say, is the heart and marrow of Christianity, as it is sketched lightly but firmly by the Master's own hand in the Sermon on the Mount; and that was, and ever must be, the only life, and heat, and radiance which the Christian Church ever had or ever can have. ard of belief and stopping progress; and all the strength, intellectual and spiritual, in the world has been struggling ever since with this dogmatic theology and these immovable forms." Whether they be forms doctrinal, or forms ceremonial, forms belonging to Rome or any other branch of the Christian Church, it matters little. It is the principle more than the thing which is deplorable. Immovable expressions of truth must yield to common-sense and to matters of fact. We must accept the development of knowledge, we must admit that the free spirit of Christianity will appear and re-appear under different forms. We must not attempt to check human progress or obstruct modern civilization, or silence the voice of modern science. We cannot do it. About 1208 science began to revive, began-I had almost said to be founded. A little further on, in the following century, the conscience of man began to rebel against the forms of the Roman Church, until at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the yoke of ecclesiasticism became altogether too heavy for our fathers to bear. and they cast it off. The times were fatal to the old theology, there was a great retrogression on the part of Rome, for the Roman Church could not see that the Divine Law of Progress was daily and hourly forcing religion into new forms. And as it was in those days, so it is in ours. Even now the voice of science is ringing in our ears, which is none other than the voice of God, for it is the discovery of the laws of God; and even at this moment, we * See Introductory Discourse, "On the Liberal Clergy. are, as a religious people, timid and terrified like the startled hare of the forest. We are closing our ears to the new revelation, as the old world closed its ears to the revelation which God made by the mouth of Luther, and Zuingle and Calvin. But still, in spite of us, the majestic wave of progress moves on, submerging the worn-out beliefs and crumbling superstitions of the past. Strong and irresistible as the rolling tides of the sea come the new impulses, and we may not stay them. We deem them wild and lying spirits; they care not, they pass us by, they are full of holy scorn; they speak to their own and their own receive them, and we may go hence and mutter our threats, and tremble in the darkness and spiritual gloom of our empty churches; but outside our churches the bright light is shining, and the blessed winds of heaven are full of songs from the open gates of paradise, and men hear them and rejoice. How many are there, religious people, who never go to church, who despise Christianity, because they have only known it in connection with the forms of a barren worship, who despise Christianity, and yet are living high Christian lives. Thus we begin to see that although man has tried to imprison this glorious and free spirit in his Creeds and Articles, yet he cannot do it. There is a Christian spirit-be it said to our shame working outside the Christian Church, an unacknowledged and anathematized Christianity still going on its triumphant way, leaving us alone in our orthodox sepulchres with the bones and ashes of bigotry and formalism. But whose is still the figure that inspires all that is best and wisest in modern philanthropy and modern faith? The ideal form of the Christ still moves before us, and still we struggle after the forever attainable yet unattained. His life doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man is still the latest cry. Have we not but just now (1871) had a hideous parody of it in the Communism of the late revolution in Paris? Do not our own legislators begin to feel that peace and good-will can only be established between workmen and masters, between rich and poor, between learned and ignorant, by caring for all alike, by rescuing class from the oppression of class and then binding all classes together by comm nmon interests as members of a sacred polity of justice and mercy? What is the most characteristic form of the religious Christianity has survived many shocks. Let me once more remind you how many. It has survived the metaphysical speculations of the Alexandrine school and the subtleties of a mongrel Greek and Asian philosophy, those speculations which were so true to their authors, and which are so unintelligible to us; it has survived the winking of saints, and the medieval Mariolatry, and the handkerchiefs of St. Veronica, and all kinds of silly visions and foolish revelations; it has survived historical criticism, and it will survive what are called the attacks of modern science. It will go on still as it has gone on ; you never can annihilate the principles upon which the Christian Church is founded. Reduced to their simplest terms, stripped of casuistry, priestcraft, and superstition, they are seen to be the ultimate principles upon which human society depends for its happiness, I had almost said for its prolonged existence. Therefore, He who is Himself the incarnation of these principles, He who loved His fellowman as never man loved another, He who spake as never man spake, He who was at one with God as man has never been since, He is still the Way, the Life, and the Truth to us; "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." And, lastly, I come to trace the Law of Pro gress in the development of the human soul. I need only ask you to contemplate yourselves, body and soul; our very complex bodies having various attributes, our mind various attributes, our spirit various and manifold aspirations, yet bound together in one communion. How has this come about? It has come in the order of nature: first, an unintelligent infant; then a self-conscious child; then a being with varied powers and fecund activities; and ever a higher unity has been reached, as beneath our eyes the simple has passed into the complex existence. You, too, are one with the same great law which reaches through all organic and inorganic beings, from the beginning of time until time shall be no more; it is your privilege, consciously and willingly, to become one with that Spirit who fills the universe with the breath of His life. But there is this difference; when we speak of the progress of society or of organic progress, we speak of an unconscious progress; but in individual progress a man is, or may be, conscious of getting better or getting worse, his eyes are opened to see the good and the evil, he may ally himself with a power and a law which make for righteousness, or he may forbear, he may foster or blight his own progress. Into what circle of Divine affinities art thou come, O my soul ! to what principalities and powers, to what majesty and beneficence! Let God henceforward be thy friend, let the voice be heard that is even now whispering in thy ears, "This is the way, walk ye therein, when thou turnest to the right hand and when thou turnest to the left." "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come," the Master Himself is calling you to go up higher out of the dregs of your own carnality. He makes you sit down with Him in heavenly places, He enlightens your mind; you no longer see men as trees walking; you no more see through a glass darkly, you put away childish things; and rapt from the fickle and the frail you enter daily more and more into the joy of your Lord! And now, my brethren, to conclude; the Law of Progress carries us on the wings of the spirit beyond the grave and gate of death and the barriers of things seen and temporal. When you have once realized the intelligence of God lifting up your intelligence, and His beneficence calling out your aspirations, and keeping your love alive under unfavourable circumstances, can you ever lose the dream of an eternal life? Can you ever give up the immortality of the soul, and the individual consciousness of man after death? If you feel, although you have not got hold of God, He has got hold of you; do you think He will ever let you go? Shall any one pluck you out of His hand? Is there any question when the disintegration of the body takes place, and terminates the present mode of your existence, as to the permanence of you in your own individuality? I know you will point to the countless millions who have gone down to the dust, to the tribes of savages who seem never to have been the subject of any progress at all, to "the back-waters of civilization,” or again to the thousands of promising and gifted men who have been cut off in the flower of their age. Do you suppose that with the superior intelligence we have seen to exist, and with the traces of a beneficence such as we may deem does exist-do you think that all these really have ceased to be? and that they have been called into life, been neglected or cared for, as the case may be; have withered here, or developed power and sublime consciousness of an infinite beyond, simply to be extinguished in the foulest corruption. When the heart rises in prayer to God, there is an end of all such doubts, only the evil in the heart and in the world comes in and sweeps away the good influences; but when the good influences come back, you rise again out of the mists of doubt and disconsolation, because your mind has been taken possession of, and you can say breathing that divine air, “Lord, I am surrounded by an atmosphere of love, though it be also one of mystery; I cannot see clearly, through the dim telescope of the soul, those worlds on worlds that are beyond. Yet now Thou art with me-close beside me-encompassing me with a love most personal; in that love let me live and move and have being, content to be led like a child, not knowing whither I may go, yet content-able to say with the sublime indifference of the apostle, 'It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see,Him as He is."" And, “ Every man hat hath this hope in him, purifieth himselt even as He is pure." BOOK REVIEWS. CALIBAN: THE MISSING LINK. By Daniel Wil son, LL.D., Professor of English Literature and History in University College, Toronto. London: MacMillan & Co. It is needless to remark that it is next to impossible for a critic to do adequate justice to such a manysided work as the present one. We shail, therefore, deal with it exclusively as a very important contribution to the ever increasing literature of "Darwinisms." Of the literary merits of the work it is quite unnecessary for us to pass any judgment, since the author is dealing with a subject which he has made peculiarly his own. Dr. Wilson begins by pointing out that the most eminent zoologists agree in the statement that man is separated from the Anthropoid Apes as regards his physical and merely anatomical peculiarities, by a gulf less wide than that which separates the latter from the lower Quadrumana. This is certainly true, as far as mere brain-characters are concerned; but in other respects man does differ anatomically from the higher apes more than these do from the lower ones; and, as the author pertinently remarks, the acceptance of the above dictum " 'may well raise a doubt as to the fitness of a test which admits of such close affinities physically, and such enormous diversities morally and intellectually." On the Darwinian Dr. Wilson's new work is an admirable example of how two apparently diverse and disconnected departments of human knowledge may be brought together and welded into a homogeneous whole, by one who has an equally far-reaching knowledge of both subjects. Equally eminent in literature and science, Dr. Wilson has achieved in the present work the intellectual feat of bringing his knowledge of an apparently purely literary subject to bear in a most effective manner upon a doctrine which has hitherto been regarded as belonging exclusively to the domain of science. "Caliban" treats of two entirely different subjects; and yet the two are so artfully interwoven, that it might find a place with equal propriety in the library of the literary student or in that of the more scientific observer. The work, therefore, may be regarded from two points of view: Ist, as a powerful and cogent piece of argumentation against the modern Theory of Evolution as applied to man, and, 2ndly, as an elaborate literary criticism of Shake-hypothesis, man is descended from the same stock as speare's "Tempest," and Browning's "Caliban on Setebos." From the first point of view, the author endeavours to show that Shakespeare "had presented, in the clear mirror of his matchless realizations alike of the natural and supernatural, the vivid conception of that amphibious piece between corporal and spiritual essence,' by which, according to modern hypothesis, the human mind is conjoined in nature and origin with the very lowest forms of vital organism." He shows that Shakespeare has thus left for us "materials not without their value in discussing, even prosaically and literally, the imaginary perfectability of the irrational brute; the imaginable degradation of rational man." Side by side with the Caliban of Shakespeare, he places the Caliban of Browning; and he shows us how "the new ideal of the same intermediate being" has been altered, almost beyond recognition, by the mighty change in thought and belief which has swept over the civilized world since the Elizabethan era. From the second point of view, the author devotes himself to a careful exposition of “the literary excellences and the textual difficulties of the two dramas of Shakespeare chiefly appealed to in illustration of the scientific element of enquiry." the higher apes; these from still lower mammals ; these again from more degraded types of vertebrate life; and so downwards, till the vertebrata are found to take their rise in some marine groups of invertebrates, probably nearly allied to the existing seasquirts or ascidians. The immediate progenitors of man, according to Darwin, "were no doubt once covered with hair, both sexes having beards: their ears were pointed and capable of movement, and their bodies were provided with a tail having the proper muscles." They are supposed to have lived mainly in trees in "some warm, forest-clad land," and the males must have been provided with great canine teeth which served as formidable weapons of offence and defence. This product of the imagination of the evolutionist is, however, not as yet man : he "is still irrational and dumb, or at best only entering on the threshold of that transitional stage of anthropomorphism which is to transform him into the rational being endowed with speech." The vastness of the transformation demanded by the Darwinian theory is thus described by Dr. Wilson :— On the one hand we have "the irrational creature naturally provided with clothing-hairy, woolly, feathery or the like, armed and furnished in its own |